Biology

DNA, RNA, and Chromosomes

Who discovered jumping genes?

Barbara McClintock (1902–1992), who worked on the cytogenetics of maize during the 1950s at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, discovered that certain mutable genes were transferred from cell to cell during development of the corn kernel. McClintock made this inference based on observations of changing patterns of coloration in maize kernels over many generations of controlled crosses. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1983 for her work.